Hardball in the Seattle mayor’s race

A voice from 2009 comes after Harrell, plus some recommended reading

Since it’s baseball season, we’ll go with a purpose-pitch metaphor: Challenger Joe Mallahan put one high and uncomfortably tight on Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell this week, throwing up a website called bad-bruce.com that accuses the incumbent of looking the other way while women were harassed, silenced, and ignored, both within City Hall and in the city at large. 

The site relies mostly on this op-ed in The Urbanist by Ron Davis, a left-leaning progressive who lost a city council race to Maritza Rivera two years ago, and this piece by KUOW’s Ashley Hiruko, which is built around a humdinger of an interview with Monisha Harrell, hizzoner’s niece and former senior deputy mayor. 

The core message: 

He defended predators, protected powerful men, and left victims without justice. Under his watch, the city stopped investigating sexual assault cases. His own senior deputy mayor—his niece—says he fostered a toxic boys’ club that demeaned and side-lined women.

You know it’s campaign season when your feed starts to fill up with grainy, unflattering photographs and angry red type. (Image courtesy of the Mallahan campaign.)

Since all this stuff has been out in the political bloodstream for months if not years, it’s more interesting to look at what Mallahan’s team might do with it, and what that might mean for the race.